Day 32 How you deal with your reservoir of rage?

I was refusing all the time that i have this tremendous rage inside me, but when i started the SEP and read Sarno's book, i started to see my main emotions that are playing a huge role in my life and leads to TMS. But what makes it even more difficult for me is that reservoir of rage that keeps coming out to different situations that are simple and don't require an angry response to. And whenever this happened i blamed myself because how i could lost control!? And i feel guilty and start to hate myself more and add more rage to the previous one that is exist long time ago. How i could express my anger in a healthy way when i should do without overreacting? I always find this tricky and idk how to do it, since i was a teenager, i always blamed myself because of how i express my anger even sometimes i did my best but my environment doesn't accept any emotional expression at all like i need to be silent and acceptable to everyone and everything.

 

Hi,

What I do is to give it to God, he/she/it can deal with it. I have no idea if you are a believer in God or not. I'm just saying what I do when I'm angry/sad/etc. I mentally say:"God, I don't know what to do and how to react to this but I know that you know why all this is happening. You sort it out for me, I'm giving all these to you. I don't understand the situation but you do. You deal with it."

When I have angry thoughts or even crazy thoughts (it happens sometimes, I'm around menopause age, lol), I mentally say,"This is not me!"and I move on. I don't feed them, I forget about these thoughts.

That's what I do. I hope you can use some of it, if you think it might help you. Take care.

 

@Majihope
Yesterday I listened to Day 6's educational stuff and they had you listen to some clips of Alan Gordon working with people with sadness and anger. The anger clip is a bit long and honestly it was hard to listen to. But instead of acting out your anger and losing control, he had the guy imagine what he would do with his anger. Like I said, it is hard to listen to-but I'm glad I did. Our brains don't know the difference between imagination and real life so you can feel anger safely using this exercise.
This was the link:
https://www.tmswiki.org/ppd/TMS_Recovery_Program#Address_Repression (TMS Recovery Program)

 

Anger and its management is a long and complex subject, but let’s start with this: somewhere along the line something happened to you that caused you to be very afraid of expressing yourself. I don’t pretend to know what that was, but I’m certain that it is fear-driven anxiety coming out of you disproportionate to the perceived offense. Perhaps you were made to be responsible for something you didn’t know how to handle at a young age, or no one cared about how you were feeling and didn’t soothe you, or you were abused in some manner, or, or, or… It seems that you are very aware of your reactions. The next step is the exploration of your feelings through the SEP and other resources identified throughout the forums. You likely know you can use the search function by putting in the words rage or anger. Lots of posts will come up.

The main thing is to try your best to care for yourself while you are learning the root causes and examining your feelings. Please also try not to blame yourself for something you cannot help but feel at this point, but don’t yet have the knowledge to manage. If you work at it, overtime the rage mechanism inside can be quelled.

There are many people with TMS rage on this site from whom you can learn and grow. Be patient with yourself. Rome was not built overnight!

 

I forgot to mention that my late husband was sometimes overtaken by rage, particularly when young. His favorite coping mechanism was to remove himself from the trigger or person, literally leaving the location to go for long walks along the beach. He would usually return in a much better mood.

 

Thank you for your reply, and yes this is so helpful because I'm a believer too, and thanks for the reminder of how i could express my emotions to God too not just to search for someone who is available in that moment.

 

Oow thank you , i listened to that clip actually and i found it amazing, because that guy he managed to connect to his deep anger and to express it that way safely. What i find it hard for me is sometimes i could not connect to it, in his case the session was guided by a therapist, i think it's hard to do that technique alone i don't know actually i could do it, and also sometimes i did allow myself to feel it like "yeah you r there i feel you, you will pass,and everything going to be fine".

 

Thank you so much! i can say that you describe my situation with anger really good, thanks again for all the suggestions you mentioned and also the way your late husband used to deal with anger.

 

Yes! I think being guided helps. I'm looking into some therapy options now. I feel I need guidance at this point being on Day 7. Things are popping up and I'm not quite sure how to handle it.

 

Yeah it sounds good , i hope you could find a good therapist, in my case i have one but her approach in therapy idk how to get with it, she's nice and kind and a good listener and understanding,but she doesn't follow a program like to open the door for these types of techniques,like a guided sessions when i could end a lot of past scenarios by expressing my emotions ect.

 

I found that what we fear now, currently are the physical sensations of rage which trigger those old ideas of why we need to suppress or repress it.
I would occasionally (but rarely) have such a reservoir I’d react explosively. Now I just feel those sensations with a lack of judgement. I can let them flood over me and simply respond to the situation with thought and more grace than I used to. The physical sensations of rage, anger, frustration etc. only last a minute, then you can choose how you want to address it. It leads to much less resentments in life.

 

Could you please give me some description of these sensations of rage? Sometimes i find it difficult to differentiate between sadness and anger when I'm trying to connect to my physical sensation at the moment.

 

They can feel very subtle. You may not have differences between sadness and rage - you might only need to know and accept that for you they are very interrelated.
Anger could be a hot flush in your face where sadness is a tickle in the throat.
You might feel a deep pit in your stomach when you are sad, or depressed. It's heavy and like lead... but that pit kind of spins around and has some movement when you are angry.
Your hands might want to ball up when you are angry - that feeling when you want to lash out at something, or perhaps scream up to the heavens in frustration. In sadness you might want to put your hands over your eyes and weep.

But sometimes there is no difference. You may hide your face when you are angry - in shame or in guilt at even feeling those emotions.

Those are some examples. I had a hard time at first too, because the sensations of emotions can feel very subtle. Many of my own sensations are not the "classic" types described. You may even find that your own symptoms are actually translations of emotions in your body and that's simply where you sense them right now. It can change. I know it has for me.